Power chords are used quite often in rock and heavy metal music on electric guitars, but you can also hear them in other types of music.

Technically speaking, power chords are not true chords. A chord is made up of 3 or more notes. Power chords are only made up of 2 different notes.

Before you can fully understand what a power chord is, let us take a look at a true major chord. A major chord is made up of the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of its corresponding major scale.

For example, let us look at the C Major Scale. The C Major Scale is made up of the following notes:

To play a C Major Chord, we will need to play the 1st , 3rd and 5th notes of the C Scale, which are: C E & G

As you can see from this diagram the C Major Chord is only made up of the notes C E & G

Let’s do one more. Let’s take a look at the A Major Scale.

The notes of the A Major Scale are:

To play the A Major Chord, we will need to play the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of this scale, which are: A C# & E

As you can see from the diagram below the A Major Chord only uses the notes A C# &  E

Now to play Power Chords, you only play the 1st and 5th notes of the scale. Let’s look at both a Major Chord and a Power Chord side by side to help illustrate this point.

We know that a C Major Chord is made up of the notes C, E and G, so to play a C Power chord, we would only play the notes C and G as C is the 1st note of the C Major Scale and G is the 5th note of the C Major Scale.

Be careful with power chords. Power chords are enjoyable and easy to play, but because they are so easy to play, beginners often get too caught up in them and neglect learning the real chords. Don’t do this! Learning real chords is very important to your growth as a guitar player.

Power Chords Chart

Below is a chart that lists the most common power chords as well as the true chords side by side for comparison.

Video Lessons on Power Chords

So now that you have read over my little introduction to power chords and looked over my power chords chart, I thought perhaps a few video lessons from YouTube would help strengthen your understanding of power chords.

Video 1: Power Chords Part 1 JustinGuitar.Com

Learn how to play Power Chords in this two part lesson. This part covers Power Chords with a 6th string root note. You will learn about muting the strings and about root notes too.

Video 2: Power Chords Part 2 JustinGuitar.com

Learn how to play Power Chords in this two part lesson. This part covers Power Chords with a 5th string root note. You will learn about muting the 6th string and more about root notes too.

Learning and practicing scales can become an obsession for many guitarists. Scales can “free your fingers and freeze your brain”, if you’re not careful. Always keep in mind that scales are part of the preparation work we do so we will be free to express ourselves musically.

Scales are to the musician what skipping a rope is to a boxer, it’s part of the preparation work. Scales are simply a means to an end. What guitar scales should you study depends on the type of music you want to play. It’s far better to master a small number of scales and be able to apply these scales to many musical settings.

The first thing to understand is that there are hundreds of scales, to give you an idea of what you’re up against, here’s a short sample of some of the names of scales starting with the letter “L”.

Leading Whole Tone

Locrian

Locrian #2

Locrian b4

Locrian Flat 4

Locrian Minor

Locrian natural 2

Locrian Natural 2nd

Locrian Sharp 2nd

Lydian

Lydian 7b

Lydian Augmented

Lydian b7

Lydian contracted

Lydian diminished

Lydian Diminished 1

Lydian Diminished 2

Lydian Dominant

Lydian dominant scale4

Lydian Minor

Lydian Sharp 2nd

Keep in mind, this is only a sample from a very long list of scales. Each one of these scales can be played in 12 different keys as guitarists we have the added issue of multiple fingering options on the guitar fretboard. What guitar scales should we study is a very important question, to be honest five minutes thought deciding what to practice is much better that five hours of haphazard practice.

Scales are the building blocks from which all music is created. we use scales to create melodies (horizontal structures), chords (vertical structures), arpeggios (oblique structures).

Scales in themselves are not music they are simply our musical alphabet. In the hands of a skilled musician they can create music.

Three things to consider when learning scales:

(a) there’s the intellectual aspect, data memory information i.e., the names of the notes and their scale step numbers.

(b) applying this knowledge to the guitar, in order to do this successfully we need to be able to identify all the notes on the fingerboard by name, not simply by a fingering pattern.

(c) motor skill training i.e., speed is a byproduct of accuracy, with the right amount of accurate repetitions, scales will be stored in the brain as a reflex function, training very slowly to avoid mistakes.

Where to start:

The first scale guitar players should study would be the minor pentatonic scale. the minor pentatonic scale is a five note scale, (penta = five) found throughout the world.

Example of the minor pentatonic scale in the key of A would be:

A - C - D - E - G

The second scale guitar players should study would be the blues scale. the blues scale is one of the most frequently used scales. It is also important because it is the first real scale of American origin.

The blues scale is a six note scale, one way of thinking of this scale would be to treat the blues scale as a minor pentatonic scale with a flattened 5th.

Example of the Blues scale in the key of A would be:

A - C - D - Eb - E - G

The third scale guitar players should study would be the major pentatonic scale. The major pentatonic scale is another five note scale.

Example of the major pentatonic scale in the key of A would be:

A - B - C# - E - F#

It is thought that the pentatonic scales represent early stages of musical development, because it is found, in different forms, in most of the world’s music. These two pentatonic scales together with the blues scale are used to create riffs, licks and solos on many popular recordings.

What guitar scales should you study is an important question, you can save a lot of time by learning these three scales first. Good luck finding which scales that are right for your music.

Mike Hayes is a teacher, author, speaker and consultant. Get his tips and tested strategies proven to boost your guitar playing his membership site at http://www.guitarcoaching.com today.

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Which beginners guitar chords are easiest to play?

Here are the simplest chords you can play on a guitar with standard tuning.

The G chord - one finger version.

Place your third finger behind the third fret, on the first string of the guitar, and strum the first four strings. That’s a simplified G chord.

Okay, I see I’m going to have to explain a few basics on the guitar. Firstly, the strings on a guitar are numbered one to six, and the first string is the thinnest string and has the highest pitch.

I sometimes catch myself getting this wrong, and assuming that the thickest string is the first one. It’s a natural mistake.

The second thing is the finger numbering, which is quite logical, seeing as your index finger is the first finger, seeing as that’s the one you point with.

The second, third and fourth finger are the rest in logical sequence.

Frets are the metal bars in the fretboard behind which you place your fingers. The frets are numbered from the nut, so the nut of the guitar is basically zero. A long time ago, some guitars had a nut, and then immediately after there was a zero fret that the strings rested on.

Anyway, I’m sure you get the idea.

For this version of the G chord, the reason why I chose to use the third finger is because later, when you play the full G chord, your first and second fingers get used.

If you place your first finger on the first fret of the first string, and play the first four strings, you’ve got a G7 chord.

The simplified C chord on guitar.

For this chord you place your first finger on the second string behind the first fret. Here you only strum the first three strings.

So far, those are the simplest guitar chords I can come up with using standard tuning on the guitar. For small children just getting the hang of playing the guitar, these are an easy starting point.

The C and G guitar chords go very well together, but are only suited to a two chord song on the guitar. It’s a bit limiting. To really learn to play the guitar, a beginner would have to start with the open chords, which are still fairly easy to play.

Open chords are called open because they are all played within the first three fret spaces of the guitar, and use some notes from the open unfretted strings.

The open chords you’ll begin with.

The most common guitar chords for beginners are the major and minor open chords. For the major chords there is A, C, D, E and G.

For the minor guitar chords you’ve got A min (min is the chord suffix for minor) then D min and E min. This is a lot better than the one finger chords, but as you can see from the list, there is a lot more needed to be able to play any song you want.

On the positive side, the open chords are the building blocks for more complex and difficult chords on the guitar, and even though there are some chords missing, by changing the key of some songs, you could easily build a fairly large repertoire of songs to play with open chords.

Andrew Webber is a professional guitarist who’s website play-electric-guitar.net has enough Free guitar lessons to get you started on the guitar, not least of which is his page on Open guitar chords.

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Learning guitar scales can be frustrating and confusing for the beginning guitarist. Often the student simply doesn’t know where to start.

How important are scales?

It appears that learning and understanding scales is vital to becoming a better guitarist, how many scales should I learn and which scales should I learn first?

Good questions, the truth is scales re important, they’re like our musical alphabet. The thing to keep in mind is that you only need to know a few scales, guitarists often become obsessed with practicing scales and over their real purpose which is to make music.

Here’s a list to help you choose what scales to practice and eliminate the confusion.

Tip 1 — Select a style

With literally thousands of scales to learn the first thing to do is decide on which style of music you want to play. Certain scales are more applicable to particular types of music e.g., the minor pentatonic scale works well for rock, blues, metal music…mainly songs with power chords.

The blues scale is used mainly for rock, blues, metal music while the major pentatonic scale is mostly used for country, pop, country rock …generally songs with open chords.

Of course, I’m generalizing here, you can use any scale you wish for any style of music, however some scales work better than others. The idea is to use the correct musical alphabet (scale) for the style of music you want to play.

Tip 2 — start on the keynote

Simply running up and down a scale won’t produce any meaningful music no matter how fast you play them. It won’t communicate anything to the listener.

The idea is to train our brain and fingers to make musical decisions, which note do you want to play next? Where is the note I’m hearing in my head is it higher or lower than the previous note?

To get this brain — fingers connection practice starting on the keynote of the scale and decide whether your next note is higher or lower than the keynote.

The keynote is the first note of the scale, e.g., the keynote for the A minor pentatonic scale would be “A”.

Tip 3 — record a background

Once you have decided on a scale to practice, record a background in the key you want to practice. The recording does not have to be elaborate, a simple acoustic guitar will work fine.

Record the backing track for 5 to 10 minutes duration, this will give you plenty of time to practice and try out your ideas.

A good idea is to try and play just one note (the keynote is an idea choice for this), practice all different types of rhythms, slides, bends etc., to see how creative you can be.

Recording a backing track is very helpful as you will find that you react differently to certain chord textures, the same note will sound different when played against a variety of chords.

Tip 4 — learn all keys

Guitarists should practice their favorite scale(s) in all keys, this is especially important when working with singers.

Each key has it’s own personality, certain keys have a warm feeling, while others are bright.

Try playing a “G” minor pentatonic scale over a recorded background in the key of “G”, then, play a “B” minor pentatonic scale over a pre-recorded background in the key of “B”.

Scales can “free your fingers and freeze your brain” the whole idea of scales is to help you play music. Think of music as a language, scales are our musical alphabet, knowing the alphabet is just the beginning, it’s how we use the alphabet to communicate that’s important.

These ideas will help you develop your own style and soon you will be transferring the music you are hearing in your head onto the guitar.

Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at:
=> http://www.guitarcoaching.com

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Is there a best way to practice on your guitar? Of course you have to make your practice sessions effective but could there be a way to practice that is more effective than other ways?

There are many principles involved in an effective practice session and I think some of these are:

1. A motivation founded on a love and passion for the music you can produce on the guitar.

2. An acceptance of the fact that you must practice on that technical level you have reached.

3. A working knowledge of muscle tensions and how to minimize them when you play and how to work on reducing them when you don’t play.

What shall we do until we find the most effective way to practice on the guitar?

When I was studying music at an academic level I many times had the question messing around in my mind about the ultimate method for practicing on my guitar and other instruments I played.

A well renowned jazz tenor saxophonist who was my teacher in jazz improvisation discussed this issue with me as I asked him and he gave me the most intelligent answer I ever heard before or after. He said with a smile, “until you find out the best way to practice, practice anyway!”

How effective can a practice session be?

My humble opinion after much practicing and playing guitar and piano and other instruments and also teaching piano and guitar is that you have to take many things into consideration like the time available, your motivation level, how concentrated you can expect yourself to be and more.

As real growth often is a slow gradual process you will not very often be able to measure the effectiveness of a practice session by how much you have learnt so you have to find other ways to find out if you are effective.

Can you practice too much or too effectively?

It depends on how we define effective practice sessions. If effective guitar practice is to work through a long list of things to improve in your playing and to practice ten hours a day without interruption I guess you can practice too effectively.

This will mean that you practice in such a way that you will get fed up with guitar playing and maybe you will even hurt your muscles and develop an aversion towards guitar playing for the rest of your life.

What is real effectiveness when you practice on your guitar?

Real effectiveness is better measured by how well your practicing methods and results are pointing towards you goals. Without goals you cannot measure effectiveness. The roads to Anywhere are many so to find out if you are on the right road you have to decide your destination.

If your goal is to have fun with your guitar then you have a very effective practicing session if you have fun with your guitar. If that is what you want then it is a worthy goal. I guess you could come upp with more specific goals with deadlines so you can measure them better. But it is up to you to decide your own goals, otherwise the goals will not be effective.

I hope these words on practicing guitar playing will give you some comfort and also help you realizing that when human beings like you and me are involved we cannot definitely say how we ought to play to be effective.

Human beings are funny things that sometimes behave like as if they were identical, but nevertheless they are unique. This also applies to guitar players like you and me. We are different in many ways but I guess we want our guitar playing to contribute to our happiness and joy so have fun and…”until you find out the best way to practice, practice anyway!”!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

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